#sharethemeal with a kid in need

About this entry

There are some 795 million people in the world suffering from hunger and malnutrition, with poor nutrition causing 45% of deaths in children under 5 - roughly 3.1 million children/year. While hunger is a bigger risk to health worldwide than malaria, tuberculosis, and AIDS combined, it is also considered the world's greatest solvable problem. The knowledge, tools, and policies that we have access to today, combined with the political will, can solve this problem.

ShareTheMeal app is part of World Food Programme's goal of diversifying and growing its traditional donor profile - up until now, ShareTheMeal has been the most effective tool to engage Millennials in the fight for food security.

Our goal is to accelerate a zero-hunger future by broadening the fight against hunger through digital innovation. By leveraging micro-donations and the fact that there are 20 times more smartphone users that hungry children in the world, we are making this fight bigger and more accessible: anyone owning a smartphone can help a hungry child whenever and wherever they want.

Why does this entry deserve to win?

For the app to make a real change in the fight against hunger, we needed mass Millennial appeal. So our strategy was always to make donations as friction less and as transparent as possible. What we believe makes us stand out is the fact that we actually put the fight against hunger in people's hands. Whoever wants to do good and help vulnerable children has no reason not to do it anymore: the app is for free and it's so cheap to help.

Here are its key features:

It's cheap to help: 50 cents feed a hungry kid for a day;

Accessibility and readiness: available globally, in 9 languages and 27 currencies, the user can donate anytime, anywhere;

Transparency: the users can see whom they are helping and monitor the progress made collectively towards a specific fundraising goal;

Sociability: the user can connect to Facebook and invite his friends and community to donate together and fight hunger together;

Trustworthiness: the World Food Programme is our reputed partner - the organisation has all the infrastructure in place to deliver the meals and make sure that the money reach their purpose;

Results

ShareTheMeal was launched as a pilot in July 2015 in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. In November 2015 we launched globally. These are our results:

620, 000 users shared 8 million meals with thousands of vulnerable children and mothers through school feeding programs or mother & child support programs;

More than 31% of our users are Millennials - confirming we are on the right track in bringing them to the fight against hunger;

Reached 5 fundraising goals in Lesotho (where 40% of the children are stunted), in Jordan (feeding 20,000 Syrian refugee children in the Zaatari camp for a year), in Homs, Syria (feeding 2,000 early mothers and their children for a year), in Lebanon (feeding 3,000 Syrian refugee children for a year); we are currently fundraising for 58,000 children in Malawi, for a year;

Won the SXSW Interactive Innovation Award, the Webby People's Voice Award, was a finalist @Classy Award and @Cannes Lions, won the Lead Award Start-up of The Year and The Responsible Leadership Award in Germany;

Was named among Google Best Apps 2015 and got featured multiple times in Google's and Apple's app stores;

Received great VIP support: Martin Schulz, the President of The European Parliament said "ShareTheMeal is a great tool for everyone to fight world hunger in a a quick and easy manner.", Daniel Bruhl, Mark Ruffalo, Sarah Silverman, Grimes, or Judd Apatow recommended the app;

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